The present invention relates to a control system, and more particularly to a control system for an internal combustion engine.
Determining an accurate camshaft angular position or simply a camshaft position is an important factor in obtaining maximum torque from an engine equipped with a variable camshaft. Position sensors attached to the camshaft are typically used to measure the camshaft angular position. The measured camshaft position with respect to a crankshaft angular position is then calculated. However, manufacturing tolerances of the engine and of the sensors often lead to inaccurate measurement of the real camshaft position. This results in a camshaft measurement deviation.
As a consequence, different adaptation algorithms are employed to compensate for the camshaft deviation. Generally, these adaptation algorithms first lock the camshaft in a well-defined reference position, measure the camshaft position, and then compare the measured camshaft position with the well-defined reference position to obtain a measured camshaft deviation. The measured camshaft deviation is then stored in a memory. When an engine control system obtains a current camshaft position from the position sensors, the adaptation algorithm adds the measured camshaft deviation from the memory to the measured camshaft position to obtain a more accurate camshaft position. The correction of camshaft position based on these adaptation algorithms is generally time consuming, even under well-defined engine operating conditions, for example, 15 seconds during idle. Consequently, these adaptation algorithms are run only occasionally during a normal drive cycle.
In addition to manufacturing tolerances of engines and sensors, other factors such as operating temperature, also affect the accuracy of the camshaft measurement. Changes in operating temperature can cause engine expansion, and chain elongation, which, in turn, can increase camshaft measurement deviations. The inaccuracy due to the change of operating temperature also varies depending on the engine drive cycle. Using a temperature compensation look-up table, a rough estimate of the additional camshaft deviation is used to obtain the current camshaft position. However, the same engine and sensor manufacturing tolerances will also affect individual engines differently. Furthermore, the camshaft deviation due to the temperature changes also affects other diagnostic functions used by the engine control system, such as fault recognition. Thus, camshaft deviation caused by temperature changes also reduces fault recognition accuracy, which also results in a higher risk of detecting false errors and a lower detection rate of real faults.